With this concept in tow, we headed out into the scorched 100 plus degree wastes of Houston this weekend with the sole intent being to locate a big cushy sectional couch.
From the great, wide reaching post-urban blight of Northwest Houston, we first headed south. Nestled among the dilapidated chaos of the strip centers and meandering sweaty mass of unwashed heathens was an oasis of American decadence. Within the confines of this cavernous pit were the gilded treasures and velvety skinned temples to tasteless comforts too dark to imagine without having witnessed their horrors for yourself. Here within lies the amassed pleasures which appeal to only those of the most base and nearly subhuman persuasion.
Virtually ignoring the last fifty years of design and going straight for the lowest common denominator jugular, Finger’s Furniture coats every corner of their aging warehouse with the sorts of things that only your grandparents could possibly enjoy. I personally expected to find cheetahs on chains being whipped by giant Negroes in headbands and loincloths, and gauzy draped maidens dropping grapes into the waiting mouths of bloated American ingrates, locked on to their cell phones to negotiate the finalities of satiating their desires for the delicacies of flesh forever offered for sale in the darkened hallows of our imaginations.
We made the rounds and then made for the door. Our spirits virtually bested, there was but one course of action. We went to Gallery Furniture.
Houstonians know Gallery well, and for those of you unfamiliar with Mattress Mac, I would imagine that every city has a soulless barker hawking the wares of horror to those of less than virtuous repute to whom they can compare. I have always fostered a certain perverted desire to see the evil that lurks within the depths of Gallery Furniture, but either never had the gumption, or the balls to do so. Thanks to my bargain searching wife, however, it was finally time to put this dream to rest.
As you enter Gallery you are instantly honed in on and maligned by one of a number of greeters whose sole purpose in their professional life is to harass hapless dupes as they enter the temple. Armed with soft drinks and bottled waters, these people accost you with the promise of quenched thirst and cheap furniture. Soon directed to follow your assigned guide into the great maw, off you are skirted before you run screaming with your better judgment winning out for once in your pitiful little life. After a brief questioning, our guide, Rudy, led us off in the direction of sectional sofas. Of all the items in this monstrous space, only two caught our attention in a way anything close to actual interest. The rest of the stuff was again the sort of thing you might find in Liberace’s house after he had gotten home from buying furniture with Ken Kesey and his Merry Pranksters.
As an aside, I might add that the place is like a museum for pop culture artifacts of the most banal order. Encased in a laughably poorly designed castle is a necklace that once belonged to Princess Diana. Sadly the necklace is currently on loan, but fortunately for me they did still have the giant, larger than life size statue of Diana that made her look like she was actually a big nosed man. They also have a half-size tennis court with targets that are supposed to keep a score as you hit them. Of course this feature doesn’t work, so instead you get to watch as fat children do their best to injure one another with light speed tennis missiles. There are live animals on site, like giant Macaws, and other critters we weren’t fortunate enough to see. And then there are the bathrooms. As anyone with children will tell you, wherever it is you take them, they will absolutely have to use the facilities no matter how many places you go in one outing. And oh, the Gallery Furniture toilets, what a sight to behold! Instead of the usual urine soaked fecal sprayed mass toilets that you find in most public places, Gallery has opted for a collection of single user bathrooms. And they’re clean. But best of all is the fact that the Gallery toilets are themed! That’s right; every Gallery Furniture toilet is decorated to accommodate a particular theme. There’s the high school band toilet, the golf toilet, the Houston Rocket’s toilet, the rather unfortunately occupied Chuck Norris toilet (I know, I fucking know, the Chuck Norris toilet!), and then the coup de grace: the Elvis toilet. I might add that there is no small irony in recognizing the fact that the King did indeed buy the farm in his very own personal toilet. In Mattress Mac’s version of the King’s own shitter, the floors are paved with a rich black and speckled silver 14” marble tile, while the walls are festooned with the sort of detritus that only has value in the coffers of those who find alchemical glory in the tritest of minutiae. You can empty your bladder and bowels whilst reveling in the glory that is Elvis Aaron Presley’s Exxon card. You can wipe your daughter’s shit varnished bottom whilst absorbing the majesty of his highness’ receipts from a Memphis tennis shop and also a Memphis area costume rental service.
And speaking of Elvis, just above the front door to this palace of the mundane is a gargantuan portrait of the man himself. My guess is that this monstrosity stands at about thirty by forty feet, and it is a portrait of the king as he is performing in his post-comeback best: bloated, sweaty, and mutton chopped from ear to neck. Even worse, it looks like someone actually hand painted the damn thing.
And just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse, just when the armies of expressionless drones that filter through the place as if in some sort of trance begin to assault your soul like a vampiric colony of ants, you find the greatest horror of the known world, a three storey Diamond Vision TV screen broadcasting sports to the sales floor like some sort of hyper-Satanic colonoscopy monitor. It’s too much, really it is.
So did we buy a couch? We in fact did. There was a grand total of one couch there that didn’t carry the smell of sulfur or the appearance of goblin folly, and we bought it. And that was where the real fun began.
After my wife made her selection, I commandeered my son to mill about the facilities while my wife was whisked away into the bowels of the store to conduct matters most foul with the evil creatures that lurked therein. I have no idea what goes on in these most inner of sanctums as I am always the one who is so appalled at being there in the first place that I am generally resigned to whining to myself in a corner about how much I hate everyone and want to go home. In all honesty, though, the free ice cream was a tad bit on the sneaky side. Ice cream generally wins even the most hateful of misanthropes over, if just for those precious few moments.
So, the deal done, receipt in hand, we headed back to the ranch to wait for the truck to arrive. A few hours later, and right on time, the truck pulls up and out jumps these two monstrous guys. They bring in the couch, sweat profusely, make really terrible jokes, and then spew the prerequisite banter about my CD collection. I can hear them mutter under breath about “collectors” as if they were talking about pedophiles. They might as well have been admiring my used-dildos-of-the-world collection the way they were acting. Fortunately I keep those in the display case in the back.
Just as they are about to slip the reins of responsibility we realize that something isn’t right about the couch. It’s not new. We bought a new couch, oh yes, but the one the ex Biggie Smalls bodyguards just dropped off is clearly not a new one. In fact, it is the very floor model that had suffered the indignity of being a resting place for the collective asses of Houston’s underworld. Dandy.
First, know that our lives in the Cramer clan have been turned quite topsy, and more than a wee turvy since the arrival of our second child. Being stressed out is something we have mastered. We are one-step-shy-from-slaughtering-humanity ninjas at this point in the parenting game, so shitty couch scams will not fly in this three-bedroomer.
My wife, who is humorless by now, fairly ungracefully orders the suddenly not so friendly delivery guy to load the couch back on his truck, “now.”
She ends up calling Gallery Furniture to ream the first customer service manager to grab the phone. So anyone care to venture a guess who that might be? That’s right; it’s Mattress Mac himself, Jim MacInvale, the man with the mission. The thing is, my wife isn’t catching on because she’s so pissed off, so in the middle of a tirade that would make Lenny Bruce cry, her face suddenly betrays hers rage. She covers the mouthpiece and while looking at me in disbelief mouths the words, “it’s Mattress Mac.”
Life can be so long, so painful and unforgiving. There are so few moments that one can look back on as being peaks in their existence. So much rides on every breath, so many expectations to be met (or at least challenged), and in the midst of it all, we clamor for direction and meaning.
Yelling at the very man who has made Houston just that much more horrible over the years is a truly exquisite pleasure. And it is in these rarest of times that the circle closes and the mantle that is our fate is revealed.
The problem was fixed, but the pleasure was all ours.
Sometimes it’s the little things.
“I am a member of the blank generation…”
I love the way Richard Hell put it. But for all that he exhibited in honesty, he lacked in scope. It’s not generational, it’s systemic. And when you get out of bed each morning, come at it with the ferocity of a lion, because anything less will get you no more than a ticket to nowhere, just as fast as you can get there.
Forever and ever, amen.
…oh yes and did I forgot to mention that The Mike Gunn was confirmed to play a show in December?
This is the greatest “yay!” “boo!!” “yay!!!” story I’ve ever read. I’m completely drop jawed and my jaw just got lower and lower as the story unfolded like a hilarious sleeper sofa.
You are the first person I know to step foot in Gallery and live to tell about it. It is so much better than I could possibly have imagined.
And you bought a couch too!
Strange that Tricia and I are currently looking for a couch. But I’ve been eyeing stuff in the missonary style (which turns out Tricia doesn’t like and probably won’t be good with a kid).
The most prominent sofa hawkers on Chicago TV are the Walter E. Smithe brothers. They are like the Mattress Mac alter ego, boring.
Speaking of Richard Hell I wish I could meet you down at the rock n roll club and shake your hand for this one, come December. Probably not gonna happen this year though. Rock on.
If I were ever to do a Spinal-Tap-style mockumentary about the Mike Gunn, I would have to have a scene where John shows me his “used dildos of the world” collection. “But this one goes to 11!” indeed.
POLL: would this post have been more or less fun to read if John and his wife had gone to Ikea?
my kind of story. MY KIND OF STORY!
i’m never going to ikea again. oh wait i take that back: swedish meatballs.
icecream? better rent a soft serve machine for the MG show.
killian did u insert linkies? i was just clicking ur text in vain. oh and i love missionary style (snarf! i just said missionary!). i happen to share a love of danish modern furniture with my radio cohost. what we wouldn’t do for a saarinen! oo! furniture talk! i need a cold shower now…
This is possibly your best post yet, Cramer. I was just at Gallery last week (there goes your theory, Kilian) and saw all of the same things–well except the restrooms. Sadly I missed those. I think the huge mural of Elvis used to live somewhere in Vegas before Mac bought it. I think my favorite part of the whole store was one of the myriad of autographed sports jerseys which read:
To Mattress “Mac”…
See because his real name is “Mattress” and the “Mac” part is just a nickname.
…oh yes and did I forgot to mention that The Mike Gunn was confirmed to play a show in December?
More information please. There is a non-zero possibility I will be in America in December.
Rosa – the links should work but aren’t a big deal, a picture of a couch and a picture of three dorky guys in suits.
I’m glad you made it out alive Justin, John too. Justin – what the heck are you doing? You’ve been to Lakewood Church and Gallery Furniture in one month. Are you on a package tour?
I went to Lakewood and Gallery on the same day, no less.
Doug, here’s the promoter’s myspace
Dec. 16, Rudz
And I won’t embarass John by saying how witnessing the Mike Gunn at the ’92 KTRU Outdoor Show in the courtyard of the archi building blew my little 18 year old mind.
Oops.
dd – http://www.myspace.com/hesaidshesaidpresents
they’re playing the sunday psych night of the texas gone garage festival.
Cathy and I own an Ikea sofa. A big black “mid-century” L-shaped number that we bought when we lived in the house we were evicted from so they could tear it down and do nothing with the land for 4 years. Long/short it is in our new place but it is not for our new place and has always bugged me for that reason.
It is interesting, and troubling, to me to note an eerie familiarity in John’s Gallery Furniture story. I have personally never gone into Gallery Furniture, but the bizarre hodgepodge of completely unrelated, yet universally tacky pop culture trinkets (macaws, giant Elvi, themed toilets, Orwellian Jumbotrons) instantly brings to mind another tacky, self-promoting Houston icon – Tillman Fertitta. Now I grew up not far from Kemah, and I know what it used to be like down by the marina and boardwalk – a bunch of ratty old houses with half naked kids running through the gutters, stinky bait shops, and a handful of greasy spoon seafood diners with ladies in hairnets and blue smocks serving you the bounties of the sea, fried beyond recognition. There was Jimmy Walker’s, famous mostly for its bar if not its gumbo. Not far away (technically in Seabrook) was Maribelle’s (which I think is still there) – a pink bar on piers where locals (including my grandmother) had been getting hammered for years.
In short, the whole area was pretty much a giant dive. This was back when the 146 bridge was a drawbridge, and to get to these places you had to wait for the goddamn ships to go by. And you were hungry, and you were dreaming of smothering yourself in a pile of fried shrimp the size of Mt McKinley, and playing with the little swords they stuck through the olives in your dad’s martini. But you still didn’t mind, because the bridge was cool, and ships were cool, and Kemah was kind of cool too.
Now I’m not one to stand in the way of progress, but a gigantic goddamn ferris wheel and whatever that godawful spinning needle climby thing is, and all this stupid carnival bullshit that sprang up overnight, plus overpriced, crappy seafood…well, I’m not so sure about all that.
I wonder if anyone has ever seen Mattress Mac, Tillman Fertitta and Joel Osteen in the same room together? Are they the new unholy trinity of Houston Illuminati, whose dark goal is to make our fair city into the leading manufacturer of tasteless, middle-class kitsch in the nation?
And I won’t embarass John by saying how witnessing the Mike Gunn at the ’92 KTRU Outdoor Show in the courtyard of the archi building blew my little 18 year old mind.
I remember the ’92 KTRU Outdoor Show.
I remember it too. I remember that Curt bailed on us to go see the fucking Lolapalooza Festival, so we just replaced him with Stacey from Sugar Shack. And I also remember that the Bad Livers were total rock star assholes without all that pesky fame to get in the way. We were forced to cut our set short because they were insistant on forcing their scheduled start time. And worse still, I fucking hate the Bad Livers. Fucking assholes.
I miss the old Kemah, Sparrow. Once bought a 50 pound bag of live crawfish there at about five in the morning (tripping on something other than my feet), brought the mudbugs back to Portsmouth street where about ten pounds of them escaped and had to be chased all over the yard.
That’s too bad about the Bad Livers. They played an event at UofH (that I’m pretty sure Justin Crane helped coordinate). I thought them good folks at the time. For some reason the bands were kicked off the stage, so Bad Livers found a corner with good acoustics and did their set without a PA.
For some reason the bands were kicked off the stage, so Bad Livers found a corner with good acoustics and did their set without a PA.
I imagine that would have been the year the Park Party got rained on. I did indeed coordinate that show, but the band you’re thinking of is Shoulders, who were awesome both musically and as humans. When it was clear that the rain wasn’t going to let up, I started setting up a PA on an indoor stage and Shoulders played off to the side while I was working on the stage.
I did have the Bad Livers play several shows and they were always jerks to me. They acted as if they were only there for the money and had no interest in being in Houston otherwise. You would think they would be at least a little happy about my paying them twice what they likely usually got and playing in front of a small but enthusiastic crowd, but alas, no. They thought they deserved better. This is what happens when the Austin press fawns over you and then you leave the insular confines of your city only to find that there is a whole world out there that doesn’t appreciate your genius. The Bad Livers were much happier when they played in front of the two thousand or so people that came to the next year’s Park Party, though only a handful of those people were there to see them. They were at least playing in front of the audience they thought they deserved.
No no it was definitely Bad Livers but anyway I’m with you guys. I mean, I’ve felt rock-stardonism pulsating from Mark Rubin but not all the BL guys. On his website he calls himself a “gentleman musician.”
and a “sorry enterainter.”
He was nice to me once in line at the Tamale House in Austin but then he had no where to go and the promise of cheesy migas in the immediate future.
Justin – de Schmog played with Shoulders a number of times. I got so sick of their set. They had some backstage attitude, enough to where I wouldn’t quite put them in the awesome category.
ralph white from the bad livers is a very righteous dude and an amazing musician. he builds his own marimbas and plays raga banjo and just about everything else. my friend shawn has played with him a lot. i can’t speak for the other BL guys since i’ve never met them but other folks have expressed similar sentiments to those that other posters have contributed re: rock star-isms.
Ralph (when he was playing with them) was the quiet one. I don’t think I ever talked to him. But Mark and Danny were definitely jerks. Maybe that’s why Ralph stopped playing with them.
I would pay good money to see a hallucinogen-influenced Kilian chasing a platoon of escaped crawdads. That’s some good stuff…wish I’d been there.
Mattress Mac, Cal Worthington, Marvin Zindler… Get your annual colon cancer screening is all I can think.
I wish inflatable furniture was more durable… and bigger… like whole wall to wall sectionals.